According to the ZDNet piece, organising content deals has been the primary barrier preventing the streaming platform's debut.

Graham also took the opportunity to take another shot at iiNet — specifically regarding the delay of The Lego Movie in Australia. From the interview:

"The Lego Movie, with iiNet along with all the lies they tell, and they know they're telling lies, a lot of good decent people out there have a bunch of assumptions they believe to be correct [because of iiNet]. They know that Lego was a rare exception. The reason Lego was delayed because it was an Australian film," he said.

"We made the decision to hold it off a couple of months until the school holiday break so kids could see it in the holidays which is when they want to see it. That was a one off. It's not an example of how films are delayed in Australia."

but it will most likely have content that won't be available on Netflix US or UKLike what, Neighbors..? :)
Plus Unblocker won't do anything for an AU based Netflix either, you'd have to pay for the US version too..!

I'll believe that when I see it... actually I'll believe it if someone else sees it, cos at the price I'm sure they will be charging, compared to US, I'll be sticking with the US version, and giving the local one, if it ever appears, a miss... :)

Incorrect, Timmahh (why on earth do you use an ellipsis at the end of every sentence?). Netflix accounts appear to be persistent between timezones. I can change my getflix region between US, UK and other countries and access the netflix libraries from there. All you'd need to do to access the Australian one is to disable hola/getflix/unblockme and your account will automatically show you the AU selection.

They know that Lego was a rare exception. The reason Lego was delayed because it was an Australian film

This is an idiotic attempt by Graham Burke to retroactively justify his actions and makes no sense at all. It sounds like he thinks that a movie being made in Australia inherently means that it's going to have a later release, as if it were self evident... what?

We made the decision to hold it off a couple of months until the school holiday break so kids could see it in the holidays which is when they want to see it.

Kids don't see an ad for a movie, and then ask their parents if they can wait until school holidays to see it. Village Roadshow think they can make more money by delaying release until school holidays, but the reality is that NOBODY CARES WHY a movie is late, it just makes people annoyed, and is a big reason why they torrent.

My god, Burke is an insufferable prat, isn't he? He just flat out says that iiNet are liars, even though everything they've said is backed up by the evidence. You want to stop piracy? Stop being dicks and start offering content cheaply and in a timely fashion. How many times does it have to be said before these greedy f*cks get it into their skulls? Newsflash geniuses: the Internet genie is out of the bottle and no amount of lobbying and lawmaking is going to force it back in. Either adapt to the new digital world or die. It's that simple.

"We made the decision to hold it off a couple of months until the school holiday break so kids could see it in the holidays which is when they want to see it."

Yeah... In other words, you deliberately held back the film in the hopes that it would maximise your profits, and then bitched about it when people pirated it instead of waiting. Welcome to the 21st Century dipsh*t.

I wish Graham Burke or one of his minions gets to read this. Dinosaurs need to know... the asteroids are coming and your old ways are heading for a hell of an ice age.

Adapt or die. Simple brilliant.

Is Village Road Show a publicly listed company on the ASX? maybe it's time share holders booted this bozo out. Like that idiot that Sol that ran Telstra into the ground thinking they could take on Google.

Yes, it's publicly listed. But through some shady rigging, the majority of voting shares are held by Burke and the Kirbys. It's an absolute joke of a company where these three clowns have continuously screwed over minority holders in the name of self enrichment.

Rest assured, if Netflix does come to AU via these dummies, it's going to be crippled and hilariously priced.

How many times does it have to be said before these greedy f*cks get it into their skulls?

They already know this. Its greed that drives people like this to try and circumvent things regardless of if its right, wrong or makes any sense.
Logic does not apply. The only end result that matters is if their bottom line expands like a balloon at any cost.

Or rather, not so much the hide of them as, "Haha, look at those guys charging triple the price in a different region at absolutely not extra logistics cost being surprised that in this global village, the over-charged region can see they're getting a worse deal and aren't signing up for it because they have illegal options which are completely and utterly without negative consequence."

You are kidding yourself if you think there is no extra logistics costs in running this in Australia.

Cost of hosting servers will be much higher here , as will marketing costs , every staff member in the AU company would be on a lot higher than their US counterparts , rents are higher , everything to provide the service is higher.

Correct. Content distributors want to maximise their dollar value in every country. They won't stand for this back dooring for much longer, which is why Village is in the picture. They have major contracts for distribution with all the Hollywood movie houses. They'll lean on them to keep Netflix as gimped as possible here.

I really wish someone would release some statistics for it. I know they never would short of a leak since it would be straight out admitting they don't care what address people put in but damn I'm curious as too the actual numbers ^_^

We made the decision to hold it off a couple of months until the school holiday break so kids could see it in the holidays which is when they want to see it. That was a one off. It’s not an example of how films are delayed in Australia.

Because whenever you offer a child anything they just say "I'll wait for the holidays, thanks".

How bout they delay the worldwide launch till our holidays then perhaps?
The rest of the world didn't need to see it any earlier as they wouldn't have been on holidays afaik.
Bunch of asshats that think they are fighting to protect their work but are just making it artificially unavailable to people who want it so they go elsewhere.

Bullshit. This happens all the time. Especially kids movies. They are released on Thanksgiving in the US and not released in Australia until boxing day.

Examples of delayed Australian releases:Frozen - 19 November 2013 in US. 26 December 2013 in Australia.Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 - 27 September 2013 in US, 28 November 2013 in Australia.The Wolf Of Wall Street - 17 December 2013 in US. 23 January 2014 in Australia.

It sounds like they are in price negotiation with Netflix and announcing that fact is a way for them to apply pressure to those price negotiations. In essence their getting Aussie's hopes up by saying this, so if negotiations don't end up coming to fruition they can point the finger at Netflix, creating "bad press" for them.

Hopefully they realize that Australians want the service provided at the price it's provided at, not the brand name. Some grotesque parody of Netflix bearing the same name is not going to go down well.

And of course, "What, we gave you fucking Netflix! You people are impossible to please!" is going to be the predictable cry when no-one takes up the service if it provides half the range at double the price of the US version.

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